


Despite Our Differences

by fuwuneral



Category: Smallville, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Clark Kent and Lex Luthor Reconciliation, Clark and Lex are bitchy exes, Family Drama, M/M, as they should - Freeform, parent your child you idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuwuneral/pseuds/fuwuneral
Summary: Clark and Lex broke up when Conner was a baby. Fourteen years later, it's still not over.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Kon-El | Conner Kent, Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, Kon-El | Conner Kent & Lex Luthor
Comments: 10
Kudos: 122





	Despite Our Differences

Clark groaned as he woke up with the biggest headache he’d had in years. He blinked, groggy, and then sat bolt upright as he realized he didn’t know where he was. He was on a concrete floor, and more strangely, he could feel that it was unpleasantly cold. He blinked again. He looked around the room, his eyes falling on the other person who was sprawled, unconscious, on the floor.

Lex Luthor. Great.

“Lex. Wake up.” 

Lex groaned. “What?” He opened his eyes, looking around before sitting up just like Clark had. “What the fuck? What is this?”

“You tell me,” demanded Clark. 

“Excuse me? You think I did this? Why on Earth do you think any plan I came up with would involve trapping myself in a windowless room with you?”

Before Clark could argue, a speaker in the corner of the room blared to life, and a distorted, electronic voice came through. 

“Superman and Lex Luthor. Welcome.” 

“Who are you?” Clark tried to look through the walls, but his X-ray vision wasn’t working. Experimentally, he dragged his knuckles across the rough floor, feeling it scratch and abrade his skin. 

“Don’t bother with your powers, Superman,” said the voice, “They won’t work as long as you’re in this room.” 

Clark got to his feet and looked over at Lex, who was staring at the speaker like he could convince it to reveal its secrets. God, that look was so annoying. 

“What kind of plan involves depowering Superman just to lock him in a room with me?” he asked. Clark knew Lex didn’t expect an answer--he wanted to gauge the stranger’s reaction, find out everything about them that he could. Even with his life in danger, he was as manipulative as ever.

“You’re not in any position to ask questions,” answered the speaker. 

“I disagree,” said Lex, standing and folding his hands behind his back like he was giving a presentation. Clark wanted to gag him. “As you’re no doubt aware, I’m an extraordinarily wealthy man, and anyone with technology that can neutralize Superman’s abilities would interest me enough that I’d be willing to overlook my own kidnapping, were you interested in working together.” 

“We haven’t been here five minutes and you’re already trying to sell me out? Classy,” Clark snapped.

Lex shot him an ice cold glare. “It’s called negotiation. Not all of us can just punch our way out of situations like this.”

“Stop bickering.” The distorted voice interrupted them, and a light flicked on at the opposite end of the room, revealing a door and a screen mounted on the wall.. “Don’t bother trying to negotiate with me, there’s nothing you have that I want. I brought you here to teach you both a lesson.” The screen turned on, playing a slideshow of news footage. It took a moment for Clark to recognize what they were being shown, but then he realized--a decimated city block, a LexCorp research facility lying in ruins, an overturned truck spilling Kryptonite dust onto the street. The aftermath of his and Lex’s latest fight. The slideshow continued, displaying photographs from their previous battles. “For years, the two of you have been fighting. Endlessly. Pointlessly. And you don’t care who you catch in the crossfire.”

“That’s not fair!” Clark exclaimed before he could think better of it. “If Luthor didn’t come up with schemes like that, I wouldn’t have to stop him.”

“Shut. Up.” They must have turned up the volume on the speaker, because the voice boomed through the room loud enough to feel the vibrations in the floor. 

“What do you want with us?” Lex’s expression was carefully detached, no doubt deliberate to make him seem like the rational one compared to Clark. That it was working only annoyed him more. 

“I ask the questions here. Answer them truthfully, and I’ll open the door.”

Clark readied for a question about his secret identity, and he saw Lex tense as well. Whatever information this person hoped to gain from holding them captive like this, they would be disappointed. Neither he nor Lex had ever been known to crack under pressure.

“Why did you break up?”

Clark’s jaw dropped. “How did you...” He looked over at Lex, who went from looking anxious to surprised to annoyed in a matter of seconds as they realized at the same time who was behind this.

“Conner, is that you?” asked Lex, in a tone that suggested he was already sure and just wanted to give their son the chance to come clean.

“What? No,” said the distorted voice, though the inflection was unmistakable.

“Kon, let us out,” said Clark in his best Jonathan Kent impression.

“No! I’m not letting you out until you talk!”

Both Clark and Lex fell silent for a few moments. Clark crossed his arms, clenching his jaw. As immature as he knew it was, he’d rather face off with Doomsday than talk to Lex about his feelings, but this was a new low. “Lex...”

Lex rubbed his brow, heaving a deep sigh. “Well. He gets his stubbornness from you,” he said.

“And his manipulative schemes from you, clearly,” Clark shot back.

Another moment of silence. 

Clark swallowed, knowing one of them would have to break the silence. “We’ve really messed up, haven’t we?”

Lex nodded. “Some parents we are. So incapable of interacting civilly that our son kidnapped us, depowered you, and locked us in a room together just to get us to talk. Speaking of which--” he addressed one of the cameras mounted at opposite corners of the room “--How did you manage that? Who’s helping you?”

“You think I couldn’t do this by myself?” Conner sounded offended. 

Lex just crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

“Tim,” Conner admitted. 

Lex gave Clark a look. Clark knew that look. That was Lex’s “this is your fault” look.

“What, you think this is my fault?”

“I didn’t say that, but yes, I think this is your fault,” said Lex, voice like acid. “You’ve never put Conner first, just like you never put me first. Is it any surprise he felt like he had to kidnap you just so you wouldn’t run off mid-conversation?” He gestured at the screen, still frozen on a still from one of their fights. “You overreact to everything, you say you want me out of your life and yet you’re constantly interfering in my business...” Lex took a deep breath, though he still bristled with anger. “Yes, I think this is your fault.”

Clark was almost glad for the absence of his powers; he was so angry he might have fried Lex with his heat vision by accident. “I overreact to everything? You are the most dramatic human alive, Lex, don’t think I’ve forgotten that time you hijacked the airwaves just to get my attention! I wouldn’t interfere in your business if you didn’t force my hand, and most importantly, as for putting Conner first, you know that’s unfair. You know if he needs me, I’m there in a second.”

“Do I?” Lex glared at him. “What’s Conner’s favorite color?”

“Red,” Clark guessed, feeling suddenly guilty that he wasn’t sure and hoping if he said it with enough conviction it would sound like he was. “And you know that’s not what I meant.”

“What food doesn’t he like? What college does he want to go to? While you’ve been running around developing more of a messiah complex every day, I’ve been  _ parenting. _ Being there when he needs you means more than swooping in to save him when his life is in danger.”

“Don’t you dare lecture me about parenting, I  _ wanted _ to be a part of Kon’s life, but you barely let me near him!” 

“Enough!! Stop fighting!” Conner yelled through the speaker. There was a click, and his voice came back without the electronic distortion. “Do either of you have any idea what it’s like to be stuck in the middle of this all day, every day? Pa, you already know how hard it is to be a superpowered kid, and that was in a family that didn’t literally try to kill each other every other week. Dad, you’re so scared of becoming like your own father that you don’t even think about how my needs might be different from yours. And even if I didn’t exist, you would still be doing this, because you’re  _ obviously  _ still in love with each other and both of you are just too stubborn to do anything about it! Fucking  _ Batman _ has a more functional family than we do!”

“Language,” said Clark out of habit, though he knew it wouldn’t help the situation.

“You’re supposed to be the adults here, I’ll watch my language when you start acting like it!”

Clark fell silent, at a loss for words and feeling terrible. He looked over at Lex, whose face was set in a pained expression.

Right then, he knew Conner was right. He’d known all along, really. This wasn’t working. They could make up somehow, or they could stay out of each other's lives for real, but this wasn’t working.

“I don’t understand what your problem is,” said Conner. “You love each other. You should be together.” He sounded so earnest.

A new picture appeared on the screen. It was a scan of a well-worn Polaroid, a candid shot from just before they’d broken up. Clark was smiling, eyes bright, as Lex placed a baby Conner in his waiting arms. His heart ached. He glanced at Lex again, their eyes meeting for the first time in a while. 

Lex quickly looked away. “Conner, it’s not like you think it is. It’s complicated.”

“No, it’s not,” said Conner. “If you really don’t love each other, look each other in the eyes and say it. I dare you.”

Clark could just see Lex biting back a retort about how the “look me in the eyes” move never actually worked, but he looked at Clark again.

With as many secrets as they had between the two of them, they’d gotten pretty good at communicating without saying a word. Lex wasn’t going to say it, and neither was Clark. Neither of them would say that they didn’t love the other, not because they couldn’t lie, but because that would be the end, and neither of them wanted this to be over. The understanding passed between them wordlessly, and all of a sudden, they were on the same side again. Their differences might take years yet to work through, but what they had was worth saving.

“You’re right, Conner,” said Lex. “We’re sorry.”

“We have a lot to work out,” said Clark. “But we’ll do it together.”

There was a moment of silence, then the door unlocked with a click. Clark felt his powers start to return as soon as they stepped out of the room, ascending a flight of stairs to a rooftop.

Conner’s silhouette stood at the top of the stairs, arms crossed. Clark caught a glimpse of a yellow cape disappearing off the edge of the roof. “Was that really so hard?”

Clark glanced at Lex, who gave him an encouraging nod. “We’re sorry, Kon. Our issues should never have gotten to the point where you felt like you had to do this. You’re right, we’re supposed to be adults.”

“You’re more important to us than anything,” Lex added. “We never want you to doubt that. Whatever our differences, we both love you.”

Clark nodded in agreement. 

Conner seemed satisfied for now, crossing his arms. “Promise you’re not going to go right back to fighting after this?”

“Promise,” said Clark. “Your dad and I have a lot to talk about. Go ahead and go home, we’ll catch up.”

Conner hesitated, but didn’t argue. He leapt off the roof, taking off into the sky.

Clark turned to Lex, who was looking at him expectantly. 

“A lot to talk about, indeed,” he said. “First of all--”

Before he could get any further, Clark kissed him, for the first time in years. Lex softened against him, reaching up and running his fingers through Clark’s hair. 

It wasn’t a substitute for words, but it was a start.


End file.
